The Art of Mending (3 page)

After I came home from the store, I needed to pack for our annual drive to Minnesota the next day. It was state fair time again. Everyone in my family went, every end of August. Our annual family get-togethers, like most people’s, were a mix of great fun and misery. They were what I did precisely one year after I’d said I’d never do them again. And each time, I could hardly wait to get there.

3

IT WAS UNUSUALLY QUIET AT FABRIC WORLD. I LINGERED
at the shelves of blues for longer than I might have ordinarily, knowing I wouldn’t have to wait a long time to get my selection cut. Two store employees, Joanne and Ellen, stood leaning against the cutting table chatting and laughing quietly, their arms crossed. I’d been coming to Fabric World for years—Hannah actually took her first steps here—and until recently you never saw the employees relaxed like this. They’d always been told that if there were no customers, they should straighten bolts of fabric, cut up remnants for quilt packs, even dust shelves. Now there was a new manager, a flamboyantly gay man named Gregory, who had made everyone’s life better. He designed wedding dresses in addition to working at the store, and he gossiped viciously about all his clients, much to the guilty enjoyment of everyone around. He answered the store phone saying, “Fabric World, what
now
?” I still didn’t quite understand how he was hired, never mind made manager; the owners of the store were rumored to be quite conservative. I thought it was because Gregory couldn’t help being charming, even when he was insulting you. And people trusted his taste—they bought anything he told them to.

“This is beautiful,” Joanne said, when I brought the cobalt-blue fabric I finally settled on over to the table to be measured and cut. There were black cranes printed on it, some standing on one leg, some flying, their wings thrillingly outstretched.

“It’s for a border,” I told her. “I need a yard and a half.”

She began cutting and we stopped talking, both of us listening, I think, to the sound of the scissors. For those of us enamored of the world of textiles, this sound is a little symphony. It conjures an image of a head bent over a machine, the feel of fabric slipping through fingers, a small light focused on a field of intimate labor.

I saw Gregory on the other side of the store, stopping to straighten some of the colorful bolts in the juvenile section. When he noticed me, he came over to the cutting table. “Help,” he said. “I’ve dreamed about seed pearls for the last three nights.”

Seed pearls!
I thought. Maybe a few scattered across this quilt I was making. And binding made of a fabric that suggested water—some wavy, indistinct lines of blue on white.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“Something sort of Japanese, this time. A lot of circles mixed with squares.”

“Sounds divine.
Anything
but a wedding dress sounds divine. I want to make my niece some very cool pants, but instead I have to labor on a dress for a whale. I mean, why doesn’t she just wrap up in a lace-patterned shower curtain and call it a day?”

“Great attitude.”

“The truth hurts. Hey, have you got time for a cup of coffee? Come in the back with me and I’ll show you some samples of things I just ordered.”

I looked at my watch. “Can’t. I’ve got to go home and pack—we’re going on vacation tomorrow. I’ll take you up on it when I get back, though.”

“Ta-ta,” he said, walking away and waving over his shoulder. And then, to Joanne and Ellen, “Which one of you wants to give me a full body massage? No fighting,
please.
”

After I got in the car, I took the fabric I’d bought out of the bag and stretched it across my lap so I could sneak looks at it on the way home. Before I’d taken the first cut, I’d already transformed it a thousand times.

WE ATE PASTA FOR DINNER,
with some puttanesca sauce that Pete’s mother, Rosa, had made and I’d defrosted in the microwave. I was amazed at how the flavor held; no one could cook like Rosa did. “Have you packed yet?” I asked Anthony.

He nodded, his mouth full.

“Yes?”

He nodded again, less emphatically, then shrugged. “Almost.”

“What does that mean?” Pete asked.

“It means I know everything I want to bring. I just have to put it in the suitcase.”

“Right after dinner,” I said. “We’re leaving early.”

“I
know.
” He rolled his eyes. Beneath the table, I suspected, his knee was bobbing up and down.

“How about you, Hannah?” I asked. “Did you lay out what you want to take?”

“Yes, and I can pack by myself now. I don’t need you to do it.”

“Well,” I said. Meaning,
Yes, you do.
If I let Hannah pack by herself, she’d put in books, her Swiss Army knife, art materials—everything but what she needed most.

“Why are you such a control freak?” she asked.

I looked quickly at Pete, surprised, although he accused me of the same thing often enough. “Why must you oversee
everything
?” he once asked. We were in the family room, watching a movie we’d rented that neither of us much liked, but neither of us had the energy or inclination to turn it off. Instead, we talked over it. “I don’t oversee everything!” I’d said. He’d stared at me, a half grin on his face. Then he’d said, “Okay. I just said, ‘I think I’ll get a snack.’ You said, “There’s frozen yogurt or beer pretzels.’ Am I not capable of choosing my own snack?”

“I’m only suggesting,” I’d said. “I know what’s around because I buy the groceries. I know what’s fresh—I’m actually protecting you. I’m trying to prevent a bad snack experience.”

He didn’t respond to my attempt at levity. “Stop trying so hard to prevent things from happening,” he’d said. “What are you so afraid of?”

“Nothing,” I’d said. “Choose your own snacks from now on. Get salmonella.” But the very next time he said something about wanting a snack—in the same situation, actually; we were in the family room watching a movie—I said, “There’s licorice in the cupboard.” And then I’d stared intently at the screen so he couldn’t say,
See?

But this was a different situation. “Hannah,” I said. “I’m not trying to control anything. You just need a little help packing, that’s all.”

Hannah readjusted her headband, then patted the top of her head. She spent hours grooming now; in the kids’ bathroom were at least seven products for her hair alone. “I’m done,” she said, pushing back from the table. “I’m going to call Gracie, and then you can
help
me, ’cause I’m too
lame
to pack by
myself.
” She flounced out of the kitchen, a defiant gesture that merely served to entertain the rest of us.

“Why don’t you help
me,
Mom?” Anthony said. “In fact, you can pack everything for me.”

“You can do it yourself.”

“No fair,” he said, grinning. He tipped his chair back on two legs. “Hey, Dad. I saw this car for sale? Two blocks over?”

“No.”

“Just to work on. It’s only fifty bucks! We could keep it—”

“No,” Pete said. And then, though I knew it would only make matters worse, I said, “Anthony.”

“What?”

“Chair.”

He sat forward, righting the chair, muttered, “Jesus.”

“What was that?” Pete asked.

“I said
Jeez.
Okay, Mr. Cleaver?”

“I heard what you said.”

Anthony looked at me, shook his head. Neither of us was sympathetic to Pete’s inability to tolerate any word that is or approximates a “swear,” as Hannah called it. But I usually let it go—I did, after all, have my own proclivities toward extreme old-fashionedness.

“Hey, Dad.”

“What.”

“Would you buy me a concert ticket for the fair?”

“I suppose.”

“Would you buy me two?”

“Who’s the other one for?”

“I don’t know. I might get lucky.”

Pete started clearing the table. “Yeah, I’ll buy you two concert tickets.”

“All right!” Anthony stood, stretched. “I’m going to pack now. Then I think I’ll stay up all night so I don’t have to get up early.” He pulled my apron string as he walked past, then told me, as he always did, “Hey, Mom. Your apron’s untied.”

I started rinsing the dishes while Pete finished clearing. “So today,” he said, “this old lady comes into the store and asks me where I keep the pliers. I tell her, and she goes back there for a really long time. Then she comes past the checkout counter with a pair of pliers sticking out of her purse. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘You going to pay for those?’ And you know what she says? She says, ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on it.’ ”

I looked at him, laughed.

“I swear!”

“So who was it?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. Jeannie said she thought it might be Theresa Haggerty’s mom, who’s visiting her from Florida. I guess she’s not quite all there.”

“I guess
not.
So, did she pay?”

“Yeah, she paid. And then she tried to give me a tip.”

I shook my head, smiling, and rinsed the last of the silverware, loaded the dishwasher, and set it to start a few hours later.

“So what happened to you today?” Pete asked, sitting down again at the kitchen table.

I sat opposite him. “Let’s see. I got a call from a woman who wants a quilt made for each of her seven grandchildren.
And
I saw three ducklings cross the street by Save Mart. All the traffic just stopped, waiting for them to cross, and them taking their sweet, waddly time. I love it when that happens—kind of puts things in perspective.”

Pete smiled. “Yeah, it does.”

“And here’s a memory for you,” I said, “Once, at the fair, I went into the tunnel of love by myself. I was Hannah’s age. Ahead of me was this couple, kissing away. And I just couldn’t stand it, I wanted so much to have a boyfriend. I took my gum out my mouth and threw it at them. I wanted it to get in the girl’s hair.”

“Nice.”

“I know.”

“So what did she do?”

“I missed. It landed on the back of the guy’s neck. He got really mad. He turned around with this killer look, and I yelled, ‘I didn’t do that! I don’t know where it came from; I just saw it fly past. I didn’t do it!’ I’m sure he knew I was lying, but he went back to his girlfriend.”

“You want me to take you in the tunnel of love this year?”

“Yes. And on the Ferris wheel. And to the pig barn. And to see the butterheads. And to the cheese curd stand, and for roasted corn and caramel apples. And pie. And Swedish coffee. And to see the tractors and the home improvement stuff. And I’ll go to the technology building with you if you’ll come to creative arts with me. I want to see the dog shows. And the horse shows—I don’t want to miss the Lipizzaners again.”

“Go help Hannah pack,” Pete said. “I’m exhausted already.”

JUST BEFORE I FELL ASLEEP,
the phone rang. Pete answered, then said, “Oh, hi, Caroline; here’s Laura,” and handed the receiver to me. He’s never been one to chat on what he calls a modest instrument of torture, but you would think he might have learned to be a bit less abrupt. My sister was used to it by now, of course, but I was always having to explain to new friends that my husband was really a very nice guy, he just had no telephone etiquette.

“Were you sleeping?” Caroline asked.

“Not yet.”

“You weren’t . . .”

“No.”

“Okay. Listen, I’m sorry to call this late, but I wanted to catch you before you got to Mom and Dad’s. I’ve been . . . there’s something I have to do.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Well, I want to have us kids get together, just by ourselves—you, me, and Steve. A restaurant, maybe; we could go out for dinner or something.”

“Why?” To plan Mom and Dad’s anniversary? I wondered. It would be fifty-five years this September: admirable, but not something you usually make a big deal out of.

“I want to talk about some things.”

“What things?” I began to get alarmed. “Is it something about your health?” Pete turned on the bedside lamp, mouthed
What’s up?
I lifted my shoulders:
I don’t know.

“No, it’s . . . I’ve just been thinking a lot, lately, about the way we were brought up, and I—well, there are some things I want to ask you and Steve, with no one else around. This will be a good time to do it. Bill’s not coming this year; he’s going to finish putting in our new bathroom. And Tessa won’t be there either; Steve said she’s got to be in Atlanta. Pete won’t mind if the three of us take off for a couple of hours, will he?”

I didn’t know whether to be worried or annoyed. “But . . . Caroline, just tell me, what do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t want to get into it now. But I’d really like to have us all get together. Would you just help me arrange it?”

“Well,
yeah.
We’ll pick a day when we’re there and just do it. It’s not that hard.”

“I’d hoped we could pick a day now. And then maybe you could call Steve and let him know. It’ll be harder for him to say no if you and I have already agreed to it. Would you please do that?”

“Fine. How about the second night we’re there? The first night we’ll have to hang around. But the next night we’ll go out somewhere. How about Snuffy’s; you want to go to Snuffy’s?”

“Anywhere. Thank you, Laura. So you’ll call Steve tonight?”

“It’s better with Steve if you don’t plan ahead. I’ll just tell him. He’ll come.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I leaned over Pete to hang up the phone and lay down again. “Caroline wants to talk to me and Steve alone. I don’t know what about.”

“Is she upset about something?”

“No, I wouldn’t say upset, exactly, but she sounds kind of . . . intense.”

“Well. What else is new?”

“This felt different. She says she wants to talk about some things that happened when we were growing up. I hope she doesn’t mention the time I told her about Jesus on the cross. I hope she forgot about that.”

“Why, what did you say?”

“Oh, just . . . you know, I told her the story of the crucifixion. And made her cry.”

Pete turned out the bedside light, settled down under the sheets, yawned. “That’s not so bad.”

“No, you don’t understand. Religious education wasn’t the goal. Making her cry was. Not that it was hard. Caroline was always oversensitive. She cried if you looked at her wrong. Literally.” I moved closer to Pete, closed my eyes.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“Why do you have to be such a good listener?”

“What did you say?”

“Well, I overdramatized a bit, okay? I talked about how it hurts when you stick a pin in your hand. And then I said, ‘And just imagine. They put NAILS in. They
pounded
NAILS in.’ Stuff like that.”